"Today our blog puts the Spotlight on Bestselling Canadian Suspense Author Cheryl Kaye Tardif. She is the author of the Divine Trilogy. Also, Cheryl writes Romance novels as Cherish D'Angelo..."
READ THE FULL INTERVIEW AT HBS AUTHOR'S SPOTLIGHT.
"Today our blog puts the Spotlight on Bestselling Canadian Suspense Author Cheryl Kaye Tardif. She is the author of the Divine Trilogy. Also, Cheryl writes Romance novels as Cherish D'Angelo..."
READ THE FULL INTERVIEW AT HBS AUTHOR'S SPOTLIGHT.
Go to my Downloads page and you can listen to my interview with Lillian Cauldwell (Aug. 15).
On Day 15 of Cheryl's 'Touring the World' virtual book tour, she completed part two of an interview with Jack Anthony. The entire interview is below.
Jack Anthony (JA): Whale Song seems at first an innocent, sweet and poignant tale with a hint of mystery. But there is a darker side to this novel―the shocking assisted suicide of a key character. What compelled you to tackle such a controversial and emotional topic?
Cheryl Kaye Tardif (CKT): Assisted suicide or assisted dying is one of the most horrifying scenarios a person could imagine. That’s why I tackled it. The morality surrounding assisted dying has been questioned by human rights activists, the legal system, religious organizations and the general public for decades, and it is an issue that has fascinated and saddened me. In countries such as Switzerland and Belgium, assisted dying is legal, while in Canada and the US, it is illegal. Headlines have blasted us with stories of people like Sue Rodriguez, a Canadian who fought for right-to-die laws to be changed but then lost, and the infamous Dr. Jack Kevorkian, an American doctor who invented a self-inflicted lethal injection dubbed ‘the suicide machine’. Kevorkian was released from prison in June 2007 and promises to fight for reform.
The disturbing subject of assisted suicide/dying prompts readers to question their own beliefs. If a person you loved was dying, with no hope for survival, with only a life of pain and agony ahead of them or a lifetime of vegetative coma, could you pull the proverbial plug? Should you help them die with dignity, or shouldn’t you? And if you do, how do you live with yourself afterwards? These are the questions I wanted to explore in Whale Song. I am drawn to writing stories that make us question our beliefs, our laws and our very existence. Whale Song started from one thought: What would happen if someone felt compelled to ‘pull the plug’…?”
The plot for Whale Song literally ‘haunted’ me for two years, but I was jaded by the writing business, and wasn’t sure if I wanted to go through writing something, sending it out and getting back another stack of rejection letters. And then one day, I was visiting with a friend and for some reason started telling her the story of Whale Song. The tears in her eyes made me realize I was really onto something. And then she gave me some very wise advice. She said...